2010 January

Archive for January, 2010

Server Going Offline For A Few Hours

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Sometime within the next week I will be taking this server offline so I may perform some system maintenance and upgrades. At that time, I will also be locating it in a new data center so the actual speed will be what it should be and the performance should be increased dramatically.

There will be many system updates taking place at that time – some of them will include a complete Linux upgrade, WordPress upgrades, database upgrades and more. Most of these items will be performed in multitude to lessen the down time.

Once all the upgrades are done, within a day or two after I will be moving the server to a new data center. This will allow the server to operate at a fast connection, with much more ability to serve the growing needs of several blogs and other sites hosted on it.

Tags: Server
Posted in Apache, Blogging, General Tech, Linux, MySQL, Servers, Uncategorized, Web Design | Comments Off

Quick Coldfusion AJAX – Part 2

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Where we left off

If the first part of this short Coldfusion AJAX series, we discussed using the CFDIV tag, along with the CFAJAXIMPORT tag to enable us to dynamically load content into a div (cfdiv) layout container on the fly. The only custom javascript we made was to create a function that our href called to key the Coldfusion.navigate feature.

This time we will be discussing submitting forms asynchronously using Coldfusion, the CFDIV and CFFORM tags. This nifty feature allows web developers to submit their form within a containing div, and have the results of that form appear directly back to the user without reloading the entire page. In part three, the final installment, we will discuss how to build a search suggestion form control that dynamically populates a search text box as the user is typing.

CFDIV and CFFORM tags

We’ve already discussed the CFDIV tag, but now we discuss the CFFORM tag. The CFFORM tag is specific to Coldfusion and inserts forms into the page with server and client side processing, including built in validation for the tags contained within the form. Speaking of the tags within the form, they take on special characteristics and names, rather than using the input tag, we will be using the CFINPUT tag.

To ensure the form submits via AJAX we will simply enclose our form within a CFDIV container, keeping in mind that we need to include the proper tags via CFAJAXIMPORT. The other thing to note is on the CFDIV we are including the the page that contains our form as the bind parameter this time. The listing below is the complete listing for the form, note I have omitted the rest of the standard page elements (head, title, body etc.) for brevity. Provided you have your form handler script setup properly, in this case I called it formprocess.cfm in the example, the form will submit within the div.

[quickcode]

[/quickcode]

In the form.cfm file we would have the following:

[quickcode]

[/quickcode]

Tags: Ajax, cfdiv, Coldfusion, coldfusion.navigate
Posted in ColdFusion, Web Design | Comments Off

Quick Coldfusion AJAX

Friday, January 8th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

External Library?

With Coldfusion 8 and 9, there are a full host of tools that you can use to enahnce user interactions and interfaces in your web apps. One of those is the built in AJAX features. While you can program your own, or even use an external javascript libarary, Coldfusion has it’s own, and it is very simple to use, cross-browser friendly and can be implemented in short order.

While you follow the rest of the post, do keep in mind that using the Coldfusion solution present, it does load files from your Coldfusion installation libraries. These javascript files are sent to the browser just as any other javascript file. Also remember that this is just one tag in the Coldfusion AJAX library – there are many others that support asynchronous form postings and much more.

Using CFDIV

The first thing you will want to do is import the necessary tag to use the cfdiv layout control. You can do this by including [quickcode][/quickcode] The second thing is to ensure you have a .cfm file with the content you are loading into the cfdiv. Say for this example we will call it content.cfm.

In your page, you simple call the cfdiv like you would a normal div layout container, with one exception – the bind parameter which tells it which .cfm page to load. Keep in mind, if you need to pass in url parameters, that is fully supported, making it that much more dynamic.

[quickcode]
[/quickcode]

Putting it together

To really make it work well, let’s show a sample page, complete with a simple javascript function that calls another Coldfusion ajax control, Coldfusion.navigate. The Coldfusion.navigate function let’s us dynamically load the content into the cfdiv – so we could build a navigation menu and use that to dynamically load the content into our div.

[quickcode]

Change Content

[/quickcode]
Now, we have a basic page that will load somestartercontent.cfm when the page loads, and when the visitor clicks on the change content link, it will run the javascript function that calls the Coldfusion.navigate function. This will load the content.cfm page into the myDiv div. Note the Coldfusion.navigate function takes two parameters in this scenario – the page to load and the div to load it in.

Tags: Ajax, cfdiv, Coldfusion, coldfusion.navigate
Posted in ColdFusion, Web Design | Comments Off

Overly Complicated?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

: Image by Or Hiltch via Flickr

Is it really as complicated as you think?

Sometimes we see things from the wrong perspective. We think they are complex, complicated and wicked to learn, use to do. We see them as something unattainable, something that will always be either just out of reach, or a million miles away. Sometimes we stop and think to ourselves, “That will never happen…”, or “I could never do that…” Is it really that complex, that complicated or that wicked? Many times they are not, and we all need to learn that about ourselves, the things we do, the thing we would like to accomplish, use or do.

I think we all sometimes just need to step back and re-evaluate how we are peering into our path. How we perceive the obstacles on that path, and where we ultimately want that path to take us (whether it involves a turn, a new path or more). Sometimes, we have to brave where the is no visible path – and with the right support behind us – our group of people, whether online or offline, that are our backing, the pushers pushing us to excel – we can build a path. Our own path.

Does it need to be complicated?

Sometimes, and being a web programmer by trade I see this alot (and have even been guilty of it myself), we over complicate things. We make them harder than it should be. It’s nothing with our perspective or outlook, but in our natural habits. We add steps, layers and side trails – not out of the fear of failure or other things pertaining to our paths and such, but out of a necessity to be thorough to the point of complications.

Why? We all have off moments, and sometimes that is all it is. A moment of clouded clarity, or no clarity at all. Other times it’s the best we know at the time, and we just haven’t honed out skills to work, create and be lean, mean machines at what we are doing. Finally, sometimes we just do it to see if we can – which can work against us, or for us, depending on what the outcome should be and what the outcome ends up being.

How about we make things uncomplicated?

Let’s face our fears, let’s build that new path, let’s learn about who we are, what we can do, should do and want to do. Then, let’s get out there and do it. No more complications from us not pushing forward, okay. How about we try to maintain clarity – yes sometimes we just need to slow down or stop to gain that clarity – and that’s okay. Your competitors (if your applying to a business mentality) aren’t going to get that far ahead of you if you stop or slow down to renew the clarity. Think about it, they won’t get any farther ahead than you staying in a cloudy state for a longer period of time, now will they. And that clarity may give your business just the edge it needs.

In our personal lives – let’s slow down and find that clarity – to interact well, live well and take more moments to cherish those around us. Those who are helping us on our paths deserve nothing but our best in return for what they do for us. Let’s give them that, shall we?

Why not.

Tags: Business, complicated, complications, Marketing, personal, simplify, Web Design, wordpress
Posted in Blogging, Marketing, Off-Topic, Uncategorized | Comments Off

First Post of New Year (2010)

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

: Image by Christopher Chan via Flickr

It’s 2010? Already? 4 days ago?

Yeah, Yeah I know, it’s already January 4th and I am just now posting my first post. Get over, I have –

I was extremely ill last week with a stomach bug, and was in bed most of the day January 1, worked everyday since and as I write this at 11:20pm I have just finished working for the day.

Pertaining to Work

Speaking of work, we recently debuted the updated Live Event Center at the Professional Bull Riders – much smoother user interface, much better updates and runs much faster than before. It will be bringing live updates this weekend as the PBR invades New York City!

In additional working news, I am working with the fine photographers from Bull Stock Media, the official photographers to the PBR. I am helping them update and maintain their web site, which is going to be pretty fun considering what great guys Andy and Matt are.

: Image via Wikipedia

Did someone say photography?

My awesome wife, knowing how hard it is to decide on items for me for Christmas, went out on a limb this year and simply gave me a Visa Gift Card. How cool is that? So cool that I am in the process of listing a bunch of items on eBay that I have had laying around for far too many years so that others can enjoy watching them collect dust as I have these years. Why? My next goal is to get me a beginner to intermediate Digital SLR camera and begin taking more and better photos. I have always wanted one, and it appears I may be able to see that dream happen – so yeah, my wife ROCKS! I am leaning towards a Nikon – either a used D40 or a new D5000 – yes big price difference, but we will have to see how fast and how much I can earn on eBay, which if you click the eBay link you can see what I am trying to sell ;0)

Speaking of photography I think I will be starting a photoblog to go along with the camera once it has arrived. Yes I know I hardly update this one (or any of the other 4-5 blogs I write on), but hey, lofty ideas sometimes come to fruition, right? Right.

If you didn’t know….

In case you didn’t know, I launched a new blog some time ago. Yes it only has one post, but I believe it will become part of the photoblog and will become a more personal blog – for posts much as these. You can find it at: billynab.com – pretty easy to remember since it’s my name. It launched November 27, 2009 and has one post, another one going up tonight and maybe more soon. Or….maybe in a month….my blogging schedule is low priority right now.

If that wasn’t good enough to know that you can still find my occasional tweets on Twitter – @southplatte – where I send a few tweets here and there. I used to tweet much more, of course that was before I got extremely busy making the Interwebz work.

Speaking of making the Interwebz work

One of my goals for 2010 is to get some “industry” certifications. You know the piece of paper I can use to claim I know what I am doing on making the web work. Actually I nearly have my B.S. degree finished so I may finish that as well. However, in the mean time (simply because time permits quick study and quick tests) I will be trying to obtain my ColdFusion certification, PHP certification and possibly my Java certification this year. I could be real lofty and try for my C# as well, but we’ll wait and see how many of the three I get done first, okay.

For many of you that might read this, you may not remember the prank I pulled on April Fool’s day last year. It was one of the biggest traffic days I had all year – so be on the look out in a few months for something else fun, mimicking, or full of gimmickry. Why? Because we all need a laugh, and we all need some fun in life.

Laughter? How about the final laugh?

One of the goals I have for 2010 is to laugh more. I feel it is a gatekeeper of all that is good, and can mend many things that drag us down in our daily life. Often I am so serious, so intense on what I am working on my sense of humor is fading and failing. No more of that. My sense of humor is actually rather dry – so I try not to joke to much because so many people think I am serious – but oh well, if they truly know me, then they know me. So lets laugh this year, share a joke or two. Let’s take some photographs, work on some web sites that kick ass and get together on social networking, shall we?